Thanks for checking out the Anchor Faith Message podcast
from St. Augustine, FL.
Now enjoy this message. Tonight I want to talk a little
bit about matters of the heart. Matters of the heart.
In Proverbs 423 it says keep your heart with all diligence,
for out of its spring, the issues of life.
The amplified classic says it this way.
Keep and guard your heart with all diligence, vigilance, and
above all that you guard. For out of it flow the springs
of life. For out of your heart flow the
springs of life. This verse kind of obviously
talks about the importance of guarding your heart.
And it talks about the importance of being diligent
about your heart. Because from your heart flows
the spring of life, from your heart flows your words, from
your heart flows your thoughts, and from your heart flows
eventually your actions, right? The things that are inside of
you will always eventually come out of you, and those things
that have been inside your heart are ultimately what's going to
come out, right. So when we talk a little bit
today about the matters of the heart, I want to talk about the
importance of guarding your heart, the importance of keeping
your heart, the importance of making sure that our heart is
always in the right position to receive the right position to
serve, the right position to do anything.
Because if it's the wellspring of life, if our heart is what's
going to ultimately be what everything comes out of, then
it's obviously pretty important that we maintain the right heart
position. Matthew 1518 says, But what?
But whatever comes out of the mouth comes from the heart.
And this is what makes a man unclean and defiles him.
Whatever comes out of the mouth comes from the heart.
Ultimately, what we put inside of ourselves and our heart and
our spirit and what we are meditating on will always come
out of us eventually. It's always going to flow out of
us, Matthew 621 says. For where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also. Where your treasure is there
your heart will be also, right? So the wellspring of our life
comes from our heart and where our treasure is or the thing we
value also is where our heart is, which means what we're
valuing the most is where our heart is going to be.
Well, a lot of times, I know people like to use this when
specifically when it comes to where you're giving money,
right? Because you're going to give
money to things that you value. So where your heart, where your
money goes is where your heart is, which is absolutely true.
But we also know that there's things that are valued outside
of just monetary money and stuff as well.
So where your value, what you value is where your heart will
ultimately be. And if we're not careful about
checking where our heart is at all times, we can find ourselves
getting out. A couple weeks ago, Pastor was
talking and he made the statement that it's not just
enough to hear. It's not just about hearing the
Word, it's about how you hear the Word, right?
How you hear the Word is just as important as hearing the word in
general. And how we hear the word will be
determined by where our heart posture is.
Where our heart position is, is what's going to determine how we
hear things, right? Because the things we set inside
of us kind of determine how we view stuff.
The way we think a conversation goes, we start to read into it,
right? This is why I'm not a huge fan
of dealing with like, you know, semi important metals over text
message because you just don't get tone.
Over text message. You know, you can't.
You can't really. So if you think someone's angry
and they send a text, you read it angrily.
Oh, dot dot dot, huh? OK, OK, well, let's OK dot dot
dot dot, right? You start replying and you're
putting motive into text because your heart position is that this
is an issue when maybe it's not right.
The position of our heart will determine how we hear and how we
receive. And in this scripture we read
first it lets us know that it is important for us to be diligent
to guard over our heart, to guard over this because out of
its froze flows the springs of life and the issues of life.
Meaning our heart position, whether will either lead us into
great life or it will lead us into issues of life.
This is why when you have like a bad day, it seems like
everything just kind of snowballs on top of itself,
right? You wake up, you're having a
rough morning, and then it just seems like from there, every
minor inconvenience is just the biggest deal ever.
You wake up. You're running late, you get in
the car and the gas is almost empty.
Why couldn't they fill up the gas yesterday?
They never filled the gas and now it's not about gas anymore.
It's about everything they've ever done in their life that's
wrong. Yesterday they left their shoes
downstairs, shipped almost coming down the steps.
I told him not to leave shoes. There now they're there.
If they would have picked up the shoes, there might be gas in the
car, right. Like all of this stuff just
starts to compound and if our hearts off, it just continues to
go, then we get to work and they're like, you walk by and
maybe they don't say hey, you're like, come on.
I'm not even going to say hey this morning not.
Even going to say hey OK fine, fine.
They'll speak to me before I speak to them.
Right, our heart position and our heart posture starts to
change the way we view every conversation we get into.
And then even though nothing's wrong, everything's wrong.
This is why it tells us we have to be diligent to seek after our
heart. We have to maintain the right
heart position. So tonight I want to talk about
three things we can do to make sure we maintain the proper
heart position. Three things we can do to make
sure we maintain the proper heart position.
The first thing we have to do is we have to search our hearts.
The first thing you have to do is search your heart.
Psalms 13923 through 24 in the Passion translation says it this
way. God, I invite your searching
gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through.
Find out everything that may be hidden within me.
Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares.
See if there is any path of, of pain I'm walking in and lead me
back to Your glorious everlasting way, the path that
brings me back to You. We have to keep our heart, heart
posture in a position to say search my heart.
Lord, Is there anything in me that is causing me to to not be
in the correct position with you?
Am I holding on to something that is causing me to have a, a
a skewed view on everything else that's going around?
You have to search your heart and see the matters of the heart
are always tricky because we always love that that famous
saying, right? Well, God knows my heart and
we've heard Pastor Earl say you sure bet he does, right?
That's kind of like the go to line is like, well, God knows my
heart, but we're going to break into some scripture that you
know what? God does know your heart and you
know your heart, but your heart will always prove.
Out in evidence. Because if you're living with a
correct heart, it will always shine through to everyone and
everyone will know your heart. See, when we search our heart,
we have to eliminate self selfishness.
We have to eliminate anything that we have been ourselves that
we seek or desire after on our own, anything that we're holding
on to that we shouldn't be because self selfishness and the
Kingdom cannot coexist. It can't coexist together.
God says you'll follow my word and you'll follow my will and
that is the law of the land. You're going to do what the
original sin, Adam eating the fruit was what I want to be like
God. It was motivated by a selfish
desire that I want to place myself somewhere I can find a
way to do this without God. I can find the solution on my.
Own. If you don't search your heart
and say God, is there anything within me, then we leave the
opportunity for selfishness to take root in our lives.
And once we start to have selfish desires, it starts to
change the way we see everything.
This is why so many people can get in the word and start to
twist it to fit what they want. I get to teach Kingdom Institute
here at the church in one of the class I get to teach is purpose.
And one of the biggest things I see, one of the biggest
struggles I see when people come to dealing with what is my
purpose is they they want to figure out how the things they
love fit into it. Because God gave me a gift and a
talent, OR because because I really enjoy this, then this
must be my purpose. So then we start to read into
everything, trying to figure out how that fits.
And then we can find scripture that somewhat works with it.
And now we're trying to be selfishly motivated, but backed
by a scripture, right? We have to search our heart and
eliminate those things. God gave you gifts and talents
and God might use some of those gifts and talents to further you
in. And I'm always blown away by
what God can use later in your life.
I I use so much of when I served as a as a waiter at Cheddar's.
Even now in the way I manage administration and the way I
manage multiple things at once were were skill sets I learned
as a server. But just because I was a really
good server doesn't mean God destined me to be a server.
I moved through serving really fast.
I started had no prior experience in the restaurant.
Got the job, started working some small tops my third weekend
someone throws a plate at a server, they get into a fist
fight and start brawling in the party section.
I'm like what's going on? They kick everyone out.
The the manager comes like, hey, I need you to run this party
section. Like I just learned the menu.
So I start serving in this party section and I never go back.
I start parties, I'm getting 30 tops, 40 tops.
I'm running multiple tables. It's increasing.
I could have very well be like, man, I'm so good at this.
I'm the highest earner of everyone here.
God's given me so many abilities.
I can excel here. But there was always another
reason I was there. I served because it was at night
and I didn't have to miss church in the on Sunday morning.
And I was also one of the only ones on every.
Constant rotating nights. There's a server like you found
out Monday what the week schedule was.
You could be working that night not know until the day of.
It was crazy and everyone had to work Sundays.
I was the only one that had a consistent schedule that never
changed. I worked the exact same thing.
I stopped checking after like a month because it was just always
the same because I held to. I will not miss Wednesday
nights, I will not miss Sunday mornings.
I will not miss these things and they made a way to make it work
and I didn't suffer from a money.
Position for it. I didn't suffer from a serving
position for it. I put those things first.
I never lost sight of what it was I was trying to accomplish
and I didn't let it pull me out of what I was doing.
I didn't start to seek own selfish desires and ambitions.
We can't let ourselves seek in. When we search our heart.
We have to be willing to cut out anything that we might even
think is the right thing. Search my heart, O Lord, is a
lot more deep than just cutting off the top layer of stuff.
Top layer stuff isn't matters of the heart, matters of the heart
of those deep things that you've got rooted inside of you.
So when we say search my heart, we have to realize we're opening
ourselves up to some deep pruning, some deep cutting, some
deep removal of things that we might have held on to for a long
time. Psalms 5110 says create in me a
clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Remove everything out of me that would get in the way.
Remove every selfish desire. Remove anything that's blocking
me from being fully devoted to what you have for me and
creating me a steadfast spirit, something that will not allow
things to creep back in first. John, 215 through 17, says do
not love the world, nor the things in the world, if anyone.
Loves the world. The love of the Father is not in
him, for all that is in the world.
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful
pride of life is not from the Father, but it's from the world.
The world is passing away and also its lust, but the one who
does the will of God lives forever.
When we search our hearts, we're saying, God, I want to eliminate
any love I have for something outside of you.
I want to eliminate any desire I have for something outside of
You. I'm willing to let anything go
to pursue after you. And when we're searching our
heart, we're uprooting these things.
We're making room now to do the second step, which is fill your
heart. You have to search your heart.
Then you have to fill your heart.
Psalms 11911 says your word. Have I laid up in my heart that
I might not sin against you? Once we've removed selfish
desire from our heart, Once we've removed deep rooted issues
inside of us that are keeping us from attaining what He has, Once
we've pulled out this stuff that keeps us from viewing everything
spoken with a curve. Once we eliminate this stuff, we
open up the position now to fill it with the Word so that we can
be so full. The word that we can know that
it's always going to be what comes out of us, so that it's
always the thing that is held inside of us.
The more you keep the word in you, the more you will react
like it. The more you keep the word
inside of you, the more you will react like the word.
Says. To see, we search our heart.
We remove things and then we fill it with the Word.
The word is what is supposed to fill the void that you have.
People like man, I feel like there's just a void in my heart.
There's just something missing. That's the Word.
Then that's the word of God. Because with the Word comes
Lovejoy, peace, patience. Goodness, kindness, and all the
other fruit. Once we start getting in the
word and allow it to fill any void that we might have, then
it's going to be the only thing that flows out of us, and the
word is the only thing that can properly fill it.
This is why people search for so long and alcohol or
relationships or so many other things, because they're trying
to fill something that the word is supposed to.
You're trying to fill up a bucket that has no bottom and
you're just dumping stuff into it, hoping something sticks.
But the Word is the thing we have to fill our life with.
Colossians 316 says, Let the word of Christ richly dwell
within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one
another, with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
with thankfulness in your. Hearts.
To God, let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you.
We want to fill ourselves with the Word that will richly dwell.
Amen. We want to fill ourselves with
something that's going to sustain us, something that's
going to carry us, something that's going to hold us.
Through something that when any trial comes, we fall back on.
Galatians 6-7 and eight says do not be deceived.
God is not marked for whatever a man sows this he will also reap.
For the one who sows to his own flesh will reap from the flesh
corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap from the
flesh eternal life. I'm going to read this again in
the the Passion. I like the way they say it says
God will never be mocked, for what you plant will always be
the very thing you harvest. The harvest you reap reveals the
seed that you planted. If you plant the corrupt seeds
of self life into this natural realm you can expect a harvest
of corruption. If you plant the good seeds of
the spirit life you will reap the beautiful fruits that grow
from the everlasting life of the Spirit.
What you put in you will determine what comes out of.
You. Every time we hear the word
seeds are being planted, then we fill our hearts by watering
those seeds. We guard our hearts by removing
things that might not needed to have been planted.
Because every time we hear something, we have the ability
to either strengthen a belief. And continue to grow.
Or maybe we hear something that we're like, that's not right.
And if we're not vigilant to remove it, it can then take root
and start to skew everything else we see.
This is why you don't just listen to anyone.
This is why you can't just listen to anything.
This is why you don't just go out and try to find everything,
because some The worst thing, I think it was said that the worst
thing is not a lie, but it's an almost truth.
It's something that sounds so close to being right that it's
hard to tell it's wrong. And that's all in people's
theology. Things that are so close to
being right, but just aren't the.
Kingdom. And if we're not careful to to
remove that, then we can find it starting to take root in US.
Proverbs 2719 says, as in water, face reflects face.
So the heart of man reflects man.
This is what I talked about earlier.
You are a reflection of your heart.
So when we make the statement, well, God knows my heart,
everyone should know your heart because you should be reflecting
your heart. And if our heart is where our
treasure is or our heart is where the things we value is,
then we are a reflection of the things we value.
We are a reflection of the things we value.
So if we are not reflecting the word.
Do we value? The word.
Do we value the word enough that we keep it inside of us, stored
up, and we become a reflection of it?
That when people see us, they see Christ?
That's what Christian means to be Christ.
Like when people see us, do they see a reflection of the Kingdom?
Do they see a reflection of an heir to the throne?
Do they see a reflection of someone with authority?
Do they see the reflection of someone who knows their position
in Christ? Do they see a reflection of
someone walking in this? Because if we have to go around
telling people all the time, well, God knows my heart, then
what are we reflecting? What are we reflecting?
Because if we're reflecting the word, then we're going to.
Value the word and things that are valuable look different to
people, right? People have people hold
different standards of what they view as valuable.
We've all heard the statement that one man's trash is another
man's treasure means something that you find super valuable.
Someone else might not care about, but it's valuable to you.
And so you start reflecting it. Has anyone like met like a
really quiet person who doesn't talk a lot?
But then you find that one subject that they just won't
stop talking about and you realize, man, they value this.
They. Value this.
They sell out to this. This is what they know, this is
what they do. This is where they spend their
time. This is where they invest
everything they have. I'm one of those one that I'm
one of those kind of people that gets like really committed to
every new hobby I get into. Like, you know, I remember when
a rock climbing place opened in town, like I went like twice and
I was like, I love this. I bought my own shoes, I bought
like my own gear. I spent like way too much money
on stuff and I went like four more times.
I like really committed for that one small season, right?
And I showed I put a lot of value into it at that one little
time and then it just kind of went away.
Or maybe we get something new and we value it a lot for a
season, right? Like you get a brand new car and
every day you get out of it, you take all the trash, you wipe it
down, you keep like those armor, all wipes in the back.
You have air fresheners in there.
Then two years later someone comes by and they're like, hey,
I'll just ride with you. And you're like, OK, give me a
second. You run and try to like, dump
everything out. And then they get in the car and
you're like, sorry, it's not usually like this.
It's been like that for a year, right?
The value you had for it has been lost.
Something that was once really dear to you, that you wanted to
be a great reflection of you. You stop valuing with time,
which means you can be in something every day.
You can take care of something a little bit every day.
You fill it up with gas, you put air in the tires, you get the
oil change. You take care of it enough.
I checked the box on my Bible reading, but I'm not actually
valuing it. I'm not getting into the word
with a value. I'm not coming to a Wednesday
night service saying, God, what do you have for me tonight?
There's a word being spoken and you have something for me that
I'm supposed to hear because I value this time.
I value the word. I value this.
What's funny is most people get to this place where like, man,
I'm just so busy. And then it's like, it's hard.
You know, you're just like trying to make it a church and
then you're just like, well, I'm here.
If your time is so busy, then why would you not value this the
most when you're here? We don't want to come in a seat
and then clock out. So now we just, we're so busy
and we don't have time and then we devoted time, but then we
don't actually devote attention or value to it.
And then we wonder why we don't reflect it.
This is why when things start to get off, one of the first
questions people ask like a little how's your Bible reading?
How's your devotional time? You spending time with God?
Because when you get out of it, it starts to affect the way your
life starts to snowball. You catch yourself slipping
because you haven't been filling your time and keeping it full
with the word. And then we stop reflecting it
in moments where we lash out or we do something wrong.
And though you're like, man, that wasn't a good reflection of
what I truly love, but I need to.
Get back to that first desire I had when I found Christ for the
first time and I was so hungry that I couldn't think of
anything else but to do it. I remember some people who came,
you know, for the first time on a Sunday that we started Kingdom
Rise and they, they were so moved by the service that they
came to every single Kingdom Rise so they can get there five
times in because they were so hungry and excited and had so
much value that was placed. You had to drag them out of
here. Now you got to drag them in.
That was a really good collective.
Somebody harmonized. I heard it.
Right. What I'm trying to say is have
are we, are we checking our heart to make sure we're still
valuing something that's been placed?
Because Anchor Faith Church has been here for 20 years.
Some of you guys have seen us for a long time.
Some of you guys have known us for a long time.
Some of you have heard this word before.
For a lot of you, this isn't even new.
You know to guard your heart, you know to value the word.
But it's easy to just stop because it's just something we
do now. It's easy for it to just become
formulaic. And I sit in the same seat every
Sunday and I get here at the exact same time and I get the
exact same coffee. Some of you wear the exact same
outfit. You have one Sunday best and we
just go through the motion and we lose the value of it.
We have to search our heart. Then we have to fill our heart
and we have to keep that heart full with value and with
anything valuable. You have to guard it.
You have to search your heart. You have to feel your heart and
you have to guard your heart. We got to make sure we're not
letting other things creep in that pull us away from the
things we once loved, that we don't let other things start to
take root. Right, because The thing is when
you first find something valuable, you protected a lot.
Like I said, like you get this new car, you park like far back,
right? I'm not parking by anyone.
I want an empty space, don't want to Ding on it.
Then the first Ding comes, the first battle of life comes, and
all of a sudden we're just parking anywhere because the
newness is worn off and we let our guard down.
Right. Because sometimes we keep our
guard up for so long and nothing's going wrong because
we've got the guard up that we decide to LAX a little bit and
then it all falls apart. You know, I remember I got, I
was traveling. I know I was going to be out of
country for a couple weeks. And so I was like, man, I really
got to get my diet together. So I was like good, solid four
or five weeks, strict, no cheat meals, no nothing.
Go out of the country, eat like a madman.
Everything, doubling cheese, doubling pasta.
Let's get it. Let my guard fully down.
Then you come back and it takes a long time to recover.
It takes even longer to get back in what was easy Like what was
my go to? Breakfast now just doesn't taste
as good. I'm like, man, just going to.
I don't want to make that again like I was having this.
Every day for six weeks I had no problem.
Now all of a sudden I'm like, eggs, How many eggs?
I've had got to make 18 eggs every time.
I make eggs for my family now, you know, Quickie goes through
18 eggs. Me and my wife had to buy
chickens just to try to keep up with all the eggs we're eating.
Mr. Larry, I think, is holding out on me on some of my eggs,
doubling up. They don't make it all girls.
Just tear them up man. Right.
What was once easy and once just flowed out of you because your
guard was there, your value was there.
You started to see change in your life.
You started to see something that looked a little different.
You started to get excited about where you were and where you
were going. You could start to see yourself
at a finish line. You can start to see yourself in
the future. You get a little derailed and
then it takes you forever to get back.
That's why it says be diligent to guard your heart.
Be vigilant about it. It says above all else, guard
your heart. Because if out of your heart
flows the springs of life, flows the issues of life, then we have
to be very purposeful to make sure that we're keeping that
thing locked down. Offense starts in the heart.
Offense starts with a thought taking root.
Offense starts because we don't properly remove something
quickly or go to the source of an issue fast enough.
And then we start to put what we think they're thinking on the
situation when maybe they were never thinking it.
Maybe that was never their thought.
Maybe they were just having a bad day and there's they didn't
even realize they affected you. But we didn't guard our heart
properly. Now we've let something seed in
and we just think this person doesn't like us anymore or has a
problem with us now. And every time we see them,
we're kind of like, well, are they going to say hey to me?
And so now I'm being offish and they're not approaching me
because I'm being offish. But I think it's them.
It's the matters of the heart. It's us taking the
responsibility to sit back and say search my heart.
Am I off on this? I'll never forget one day I went
to Publix and there was someone they had gotten upset.
They left the church. You know what happens?
I'm walking through Publix and I see this individual.
You know, I always think it's a good gauges.
Can you communicate with somebody right?
If you feel like you need to hide, you're probably not a
great spot. I'm walking down Publix.
This person walks by me and they their car, they're like looking
like inspecting the roof all of a sudden, like you couldn't have
just grabbed. A box off the shelf like they're
full blown full neck back. Oh man.
Huh look at that. Wow so I just you know kind of
wave. They don't obviously probably
don't see me because they're way up here right, but I was fine.
I. Was like, I'll say hey, I got a
problem, people move on, people find different things, no big
deal. But apparently it was to them
something set in enough that they couldn't even imagine
giving just a because you could one of them.
I've gotten some of those before.
Like, hey, at least you wave. This guy almost broke his neck.
I mean, I was curious enough. I looked up.
Did I miss something? Maybe there is something
interesting up there. So how do we guard our hearts?
We got our heart. Proverbs 3/5 through six says
trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your
own understanding and always acknowledge Him and He will make
your path straight. We have to guard our heart
through trust. We got our heart through
trusting God's Word, through trusting God's plans, through
trusting that His Word will prevail, through trusting that
His Word is enough. Whether I see it now or not, I
trust God's Word will work. And if I have such trust in
God's Word, it brings peace, it brings peace, it brings comfort
and peace in Philippians 47 says.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen. When you're not stressing about
something, then you're not going to be worried about things
taking root. When we have full trust in God,
it can bring peace that we know we're good.
Right, when I first started travelling, you know, my, my one
daughter Scotty was a lot more apprehensive of me being gone.
And by a little bit, I mean a lot.
I mean like every night we had a problem Facetiming, like, hey,
I'm going to be back. It's going to be OK, right?
Like you're fine, your mom's there.
But when I come back, all of a sudden she sleeps all the way
through the night. Why?
Because I brought peace. Into the situation.
For her, I brought peace enough that there was no anxiety, there
was No Fear. There's nowhere she knew.
If Dad's here, then everything's going to be fine if Dad's here.
So we had to teach her that, look, God is the source of
peace, and whether I'm here or not, I'm going and doing what
God wants. Nothing's going to happen to
you, right? You bring peace in and peace
will guard your heart from trying to find other solutions.
When I fully trust God, I'm not going somewhere else to try to
find answers. I'm going to the word that
should be full inside of me. I'm going back to the thing that
should be so in my heart that it comes out is our first response
is the word is our go to the word or is our go to trying to
find solutions on our own? Is our go to trying to just make
it work. I'm the kind of person who can
figure like I like to just figure things out.
Like if something's wrong, I will, I like, I will create a
solution. I will find the problem, I will
find the solution, and I will implement this thing so that we
can get the course corrected. But at the same time, I also
have to be able to step back and say I might be able to find a
solution, but is my solution the right solution?
Because just because the problem solved doesn't mean the problem
was solved correctly, right? Because I might be pretty good
with computers, but I am horrible at maintenance things
and if there's a leak. I might be able to take that
thing to. Stop.
But that's the only going to hold for so long, right?
I have no problem hanging pictures in my house.
When I hang my TV, I'm calling Bradley.
Like, look, man, I ain't risking this thing falling.
I need you to come here and help me out.
I get it. There's studs.
There's things. You find them.
Understand the concept. I trust him more.
I trust him more than I trust myself.
There's also nothing worse, in my opinion, than me hanging
something crooked and being like, got to redo the whole
thing pretty easy. When Bradley does, I'm going,
you know, maybe it's a little crooked, man, we need you to fix
it for me. He's never actually hung
anything crooked in my house, which is why I call Bradley,
right? But at the same time, just
because I could do it doesn't mean I would be the best one to
do it. And so if I fully trust in God
that I'm going to look for Him for the best solution to any
problem I start to get into. Some things come quick because
the more you're filled with the Word, the quicker these answers
come. I'm not saying that everything
you go through in life requires prayer and fasting, but it
should ever be off the table, right?
Because the next way we guard our heart is through prayer,
through seeking, through staying with the word.
Jeremiah 2912 through 13 says, then you will call upon me and
come and pray to me and I will listen to you.
You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all
of your heart. See, I always think it's.
Interesting when they add things like this to scriptures because
a lot of times people like kind of negate them.
You will you. Will pray you hey you.
Seek me and you will find me. How many times have you heard
that? How many times have we heard?
You seek me and you will find me.
And everyone's like, yeah, with all of your heart meaning you
can seek. And not find if all your heart.
Ain't in it. These are the important things
to bring up. I understand it's not a shouty
to to end it like that, but at the same time I'd be doing you a
disservice to just yell you'll seek me and you'll find me.
But if you don't do with all his heart, then you're going to feel
like you're seeking, but you're not really seeking because
you're not seeking correctly. So when you don't fire him, you
think, oh, it didn't work when God's word works every time
period. That's why this is here, and it
lets you know you seek me with all your heart.
You will find me. And when you seek something with
all your heart, when you care about something and value
something so much, it takes top precedent and priority in your
life. Meaning I will cut out
everything else to get this answer, to seek after him, to
find this. Everything convenient to me, all
the plans I've made, all of my daily routines, all of my
schedule, everything I've placed that I feel like is great.
I'm willing to let it go, to seek after you, to find you.
Because I will give you all of my heart in every moment.
Seek me and you will find me when you search with all of your
heart. See, when it comes to matters of
the heart, we have to be willing to to realize that we can be
wrong a lot more than we want to be.
That our emotions can guide us to places that aren't the
spirit. Your emotions aren't your heart.
Being led by your feelings is not feeling your heart right.
This isn't about all of this song makes me feel good so I can
really worship in this one because I get goosebumps now.
What is the word being spoken? What am I singing over my life?
What am I saying when I sing these songs?
What am I saying when I get in this moment?
What am I doing? Because you know what?
I love worship and I can get in worship.
I'm a big worshiper. I've written worship songs here,
Frankie Faith Church. I've done some stuff with them.
I've traveled with them. I played, I've been at East
Coast Camp. When we're on stage, you know,
the kids are going crazy wild and it's just like one of the
easiest things to jump around to.
But I've also been in amazing moments where there's complete
silence and you'll realize your heart for God real fast.
Because when everything gets quiet and no one's prompting
you, am I filled enough with the Word that I know what to do in
the moment? That I know how to navigate this
thing? That I know how to put myself in
the proper position of opening up my heart to receive something
from God. See, the more we continue to to
fill our our hearts, the bigger our input, the greater our
output. The more you start to get inside
of you, the more you can start to give out of you.
I've said it before, some of us only solve surface problems
because we only have surface word.
We struggle with the deep problems because we don't have
the word deep inside our heart. So when those big troubles come,
we're tapped out. I've got nothing to pull from.
Here's the thing, the the higher level you obtain, the more you
begin to input. The more you get into seasons
where you're just rolling, the more that you need to keep it up
there, right? Because the more spiritual
maturity you have, the more that's going to be able to give
you more output in people's lives.
And the more output that you have in people's lives, how much
more do you have to input into yourself?
There should come a point where you are doing way more reading
and way more praying than you ever were before because you've
received a level of output that requires the input.
And if I value the word, then I'm looking for those moments
because when people love stuff, they love spending time doing
that stuff and they have no problem doing the preparation
required to do it. This is why Paul so much
references athletes says man, they they trained to obtain a
perishable prize. How much more should you
spiritually do it? How much more should we be
putting into our spiritual output?
But how easy It is often times to put the least effort in
there, to put in just enough to feel like we're putting it in.
And then in moments of time that we get to reflect what's in us,
maybe we reflect. And then we reflect, you know,
like, man, Christ, that was good.
That was good. And then the third trial comes
and you're gone. You're out, you're tapped,
you've reached the position. We realized, man, my input
wasn't there. I didn't have enough in me,
right? And I would hate to be in a
moment where man, God wants to use me, but I don't have enough
in me to be used in this moment. I don't have enough here.
I haven't put enough in to really put out.
And so now I'm trying to make something work.
I'm trying to come up with something.
I'm trying to figure something out, whether than keeping the
words so filled in my heart that it can't help but come out.
It can't help but be the thing that draws from me.
You know, I have some great conversations with some of my
friends and inevitably, you know, I, I call, you know,
Pastor Zach Morris from Rhema. We, we talk on the phone pretty
regularly and it always at some point kind of goes to Bible
talk. No matter what we're talking
about, whether we're checking in the day, at some point, more
than likely we'll end up having a little bit of Bible
conversation. Why?
Because we just love the word. And if I say that and you think,
man, that's kind of weird, then maybe you don't value the word
enough. Because if the idea of having
spiritual conversations seems weird to you, but you have no
problem talking about politics and sports 24/7.
Then we're not feeling ourselves properly, right?
I know there's a lot going on in the world right now and it can
start to seem crazy and you can start to get paranoid and you
can start trying to piece things together and you start trying to
see what's going on. But do we pull back in those
moments? Say, you know what?
I've I've been filling myself with too much of that and I need
to get into the word and bring peace back into my life.
I need to pull back from these things I've been filling myself
with recently and start putting extra in their season in your
life that you might just for a season have to do even more
because you know the demand that's coming, right?
When we talk about matters of the heart, we're talking about,
man, am I constantly searching. Because here's the thing, if, if
we have to guard our heart above all, then it's not something
you're ever going to get to a place that you stop doing it.
You'll never obtain some level of heart guarding that nothing
can get through it. No, we have to continue to keep
ourselves in a position and be continue to keep ourselves
filled and continue to keep that guard up, continue to keep
ourselves in a spot that we can think.
Man, I'm ready for anything that comes at me.
Right, because we all know when you go into a situation
prepared, it's a lot better than being unprepared.
You know, I'm, I'm the kind of person that likes to know what
I'm going. Like, what is the meeting about?
Like don't schedule a meeting with me and just say we need to
meet. Nah, what are we meeting about?
Because I want to be prepared. I want to know what's going on.
I want to be able to put in my preparation work.
Whether it's because I need this meeting to be quick.
And I don't want us to be stumbling around whether I need
to do prep or whether it's you're going to come and say
something. And I want to be prepared to
come back with what I need to. Whatever it is, I want to be
prepared because I feel better when I am.
And you can tell when you get into a situation that you're
blindsided by and you're just like, and when we aren't filling
ourselves with the word constantly, we'll get into
spiritual situation that would become blindsided by that.
We aren't prepared for that. We're not ready to handle.
So we have to search our hearts. We have to fill our hearts and
we have to guard our hearts. And we guard our heart through
trusting God, through seeking Him, through finding His peace,
through through putting ourself in a position of knowing who we
are, right? Because like I said, when you
know who you are and you're prepared for situations, you
handle things differently. You can go into situations with
a different mindset. You know when you realize the
authority you have, you can go into battles knowing your
position and you talk different. When you've collected all the
information and you have everything, you need to come in
and say, man, I have all the proof in this situation.
No conversation scary, no, no confrontation scary.
When you know I'm 100% right. I can prove I'm right.
I can prove you're wrong. I have proof that you did this
and it was not me. You go into the things you're
like, bring it on because I know how this ends.
And that's what the Word tells us constantly that we can have
in any situation we come to, that if we seek after God, that
if we stay in the Word, we can have the word inside of us to
know. No matter what situation rises,
I know my position will be that God's Word works and I, he will
see me through this thing, that we will see the other side of
this situation exactly like we need to.
Because I'm going to stand in what I know I'm called to be and
what I know I'm called to do in the position I was placed to be
in. So don't get complacent in your
value of the word. Because if our heart reflects
what we value, we want to make sure that we're valuing the
correct things. We want to make sure that the
value we've placed in the word is not something that will
diminish over time. The words like gold, it only
gets better. It only should increase in our
lives. It should only become more
valuable. Because the more you seek after
and the more you start to see victories and the more you start
to see revelation, the more you realize, man, what else would I
want outside of this? How could I want anything else?
Don't lose value in the word. Don't find yourself just letting
it become formulaic. Don't find yourself just letting
it become something I do something I've been in something
I've been around. Oh, I've heard that before.
Oh, I've been there before. Oh, I've seen that before.
There's always. That's why it says the word is
alive and active because there's always going to be something.
At Anchor Faith Church, we do a Bible reading plan every single
year and without fail every single year.
I actually started last year. I started highlighting in
different colors. That way when I go through my
Bible reading plan, I can see something I highlighted last
year that I thought was interesting and compare it to
maybe what I get this year. And it's amazing how I can read
a scripture one year and not, you know, it's good and you keep
reading, but then the next. Year you're like.
That means something different to me now, Like I didn't see
this last year. I didn't think about that last
year. I knew that you know where,
where, where my heart, my treasure is, my heart is, but I
didn't realize that it was going to be a reflection of everything
I value. I didn't realize that my heart
is just a reflection of where I put most of my time, that my
heart is a reflection of what I'm in the most.
And that if I'm going to say, well, God knows my heart,
everyone should know my heart because I should be reflecting
it constantly to everyone. I should be in a place of search
my heart. And so tonight when the band
comes up and they sing this song one time all I want, I'm not
asking for an altar call. I'm not asking for anything
crazy. I just want the band to sing the
chorus and then search your heart.
Take a moment of reflection to think to yourself, man, have I
lost sight of the value of the word?
Have I lost sight of what I have?
Because one thing I do love about the fact that I get to
travel is I do go to other churches.
And you know, I've been to a lot.
I've seen some really great ones.
I've seen some that you're like, OK, this is different.
But it always brings me back to like, how?
Good, we have it. That's my personal thing, you
know, you can see it how you want to see it.
But for me, when I get back, I'm excited because I'm like, man,
I'm so excited to be around this group of people.
Because I've seen. Some other stuff outside of it.
And I think man, we got it good. And it helps put my heart back
in a position of, man, I value what we've got going on here.
I value what you've placed in Anchor Faith Church, the part
you've played to get it where it is.
That gets me excited to continue.
To do this all the time. So tonight, in just this one
moment, take a second and just reflect.
Lord, search my heart, fill my heart, bring peace, and garden
my heart. In Jesus name.
Thank you so much for listening to this message.
If you want more, subscribe to our message podcast on iTunes,
Google Play, Spotify and SoundCloud.
Rating and leaving a comment will go a long way with helping
our messages get better circulation.
If you'd enjoy watching our weekend messages, visit
youtube.com/anchor Faith. We'd love it if you'd subscribe,
leave a comment or a like on the messages.
If you'd like to find out more information about us and how
we're influencing the world and help support the work we're
doing by giving, just visit anchorfaith.com.